There are passages in Scripture that seem almost ceremonial until one day they become personal. For years, I heard St. Paul’s command — “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” — as something noble and demanding, but clear. It called a man to responsibility, to fidelity, to sacrifice. I believed I understood it. I loved my wife openly. I expressed affection. I pursued her, cherished her, delighted in her presence. I was not emotionally absent, nor romantically cold.
And yet suffering has revealed to me that understanding a command and living its full depth are not the same thing.
The Greek word Paul uses for love is agapaō (ἀγαπάω), a love that gives without grasping, that offers itself without coercion. Christ does not dominate His Bride; He “hands Himself over” — paredōken heauton — for her. The model is not intensive. It is a self-gift purified of ego.
I did love intensely. That was not my downfall. My struggle was more subtle. I sometimes loved with urgency rather than patience. I carried my own wounds quietly and, without intending to, allowed my intensity to communicate need when it should have communicated steadiness. Love, as St. Paul writes elsewhere, “is patient and kind.” Patience — makrothumei — is long restraint, the capacity to suffer without pressing. Kindness — chrēsteuetai — is goodness that does not impose. I knew endurance; I had to learn gentleness.
Much modern discomfort with this passage focuses on the word “submit.” The Greek verb hypotassō (ὑποτάσσω) does not signify inferiority; it describes an ordered relationship freely embraced. And before Paul speaks to wives, he commands, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” — hypotassomenoi allēlois. Mutuality precedes distinction. The Church has consistently taught the equal dignity of husband and wife, both bearing the image of God. The distinction of role is not inequality of worth. As St. John Paul II wrote in Mulieris Dignitatem, “Both man and woman are human beings to an equal degree.”
If there has been abuse of this text, it has come not from obedience to it but from abandonment of its heart. Paul does not command husbands to rule; he commands them to die. Headship — kephalē — in Christ does not mean domination but life-giving responsibility. Christ, the Bridegroom, kneels to wash feet. He waits for the free response of the Bride. He does not coerce love; He invites it.
When I reflect on my own marriage, I do not first think of conflict. I think of standing before God and speaking vows that felt weightless because they were so obviously true. Marriage is not simply a legal contract; it is, as the Catechism teaches, a sacrament — “a covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life.” That phrase — “the whole of life” — has become luminous to me. My wife was not adjacent to my mission; she was woven into it. Her presence shaped the atmosphere of our home, my sense of self, and my imagination.
Genesis speaks of “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” That language is not metaphor alone. It is an ontological and existential union.
St. Catherine of Siena once wrote of Christ's love as a fire that both wounds and heals. Love is not sterile. It purifies by burning away pride. In my own suffering, I have seen pride that hid in strength. I assumed that reliability and devotion were sufficient. I see now that love must also be visibly safe. Edith Stein — St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross — observed that women have a particular sensitivity to personal presence and relational depth. A husband may believe he has given love through effort; a wife must feel that love through attentiveness.
I do not write this as a public act of self-condemnation. I worked hard. I was faithful. I did not betray my vows. But love, like grace, demands continual conversion. Suffering has exposed not lovelessness in me, but impatience — a desire for reassurance that sometimes overshadowed her freedom. Christ's love for the Church never overwhelms her. He stands, as the Book of Revelation says, and knocks.
If I imagine renewal, I imagine not arguments won but vows renewed. I imagine the Bridegroom extending His hand again, not in domination but in invitation. Dorothy Day once wrote that "love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams." Marriage is precisely that love in action — daily, imperfect, sanctifying.
“This is a great mystery,” Paul writes — mysterion mega. Marriage reflects Christ and the Church not as a metaphor but as participation. If I have learned anything in this season, it is that masculine strength must mature into masculine tenderness. Authority must be cruciform. Intensity must be tempered by patience. And love must always leave room for the beloved’s freedom.
To love “as Christ loved” is not to win. It is to remain faithful, to grow softer where pride once stood, and to remember that every marriage is, in some hidden way, a wedding continually unfolding before God.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member